


Relapse

by CrazyGorge



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Bad Decisions, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, Sibling Incest, pinecest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 13:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20447822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyGorge/pseuds/CrazyGorge
Summary: I don't know what's going to happen in the futurebut whatever it is you don't have to fearbecause we'll do it together.





	Relapse

**Author's Note:**

> Right, disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer, blah blah blah, fair use, all rights reserved by their respective shareholders, this is a non-profit work, no defamation of businesses or products intended, any similarity to existing individuals is incidental, sigh to yourself and ask "what happened to the days when we could just make shit and let it just be?"
> 
> Also, incest. Inbreeding. FICTIONALLY depicts an alternate reality where two FICTIONAL kids grew up to have issues and also  
F@¢永  
each other. Viable possibility, regardless of whether you think it'd be moral in our world (spoilers: it's not, and I don't think it is), or if it'd be the most likely or most interesting plot turn for the characters. Purely a what-if, as are all contemporaries. It's been three years. Let's not be children, yeah?
> 
> Anyway, gonna let the work speak for itself. Need to edit for grammar and redundant words/phrases, so subject to change. If that's a problem, save this immediately. Hell, save the re-edit, too. Don't even bother crediting me. Just let the damn thing be.

“Keys. Keys. Keys. Keys…” the young man mumbled to himself as he raced back and forth across his apartment. He tore by open chip bags and past half-empty beer bottles, desperately searching for the small, underused keyring that had mysteriously vanished from the drawer he always kept them in...probably by Teegan’s hands.

Truth be told, he didn’t really need the backup right this moment. After all, his original set rarely left his jean pocket outside of starting his car or opening his front door. He told himself he didn’t want to leave the set around for his roomates, Teegan and Dave, to do god knows what with...assuming they hadn’t already stole them.

Really, though, he just needed the distraction.

Dipper had already spent the weekend packing...then septuple-checking that he had everything...then unpacking everything and reorganizing the luggage according to his own system of most-likely importance.

_ ‘Y~Yikes,’ _ he stopped his search to think to himself. _ ‘Maybe I should sit down.’ _

With midterms through, it was time to visit home as always. Back when he and...Mabel, had been jokingly planning how they were going to survive college, neither was particularly sure if either was capable of sticking to the whole “visit home absolutely every midterm, move back home every summer” ordeal. After all, they were going to be living in different cities, surrounded by new people. They’d probably need to get jobs, or otherwise have other obligations. They both knew it was only a matter of time before Mabel turned wherever she was living into a petting zoo.

Yet, somehow, even as new friends came into the picture and life tried everything to get in the way, they’d somehow always been able to make time. Now, more than a year and a half later, they still managed to avoid missing a single visit.

Dipper sat there, on one of the beanbag chairs he kept in the bedroom of his basement apartment. As he sat, he brooded on it all.

There had been a couple times where he had almost made an excuse; made plans in advance, said that something had come up at the last minute, or even that the visit had just “slipped his mind”. Granted, those hadn’t been for the best reasons, either. After all, there really isn’t any reason he should dislike Mabel’s boyfriend. 

By all rights, he was a good guy. He was steady, reliable and, to Dipper’s surprise, not the least bit stuck-up. For Mabel’s boyfriends, that was a welcome first.

Dipper scowled, biting his lip.

Okay, that wasn’t fair. He knew he had a bias against all of her boyfriends that he really shouldn’t have. But then, he probably shouldn’t be so creepily eager to spend time with Mabel, either. They were both adults now, They had their own lives. More importantly, what had…

He blushed furiously, and hated himself for it.

…“happened” between them was long in the past, now.

He scrunched up his face and threw his back into the beanbag chair. _ ‘Shit. This was exactly the type of thinking I was trying to avoid’. _ He wondered if he wasn’t really in the state to go through with this visit. He wished he hadn’t said no to his study group’s weekend-long hiking trip. He wonders if they’re back yet. Hell, he’d even settle for Teagan and Dave’s heckling right now, had they not vanished without a trace the moment the school quarter had ended.

Without thinking, he went for his phone…

...only to realize it wasn’t in his pocket.

He froze. Two days ago, on Friday, he’d shut it off and packed it to avoid having to look at it. Just another means of keeping his doubts at bay...but then he’d reorganized the bags, and couldn’t remember where he’d put his phone. He made an effort to calm himself. He probably didn’t move it from the front pouch of the backpack. He knew better. If he had moved it, he’d probably put it in the side pouch of his laptop bag. Even if he couldn’t find it, he’d be back in Piedmont by tomorrow evening, and the odds of something happening…

...A thought pushed its way to the front of his mind; not for long, and not in any clear phrase or concept. Just a brief collection of images that his conscious mind could barely register. A walkie-talkie, a backpack, a snowglobe, and…

_ ‘No. No. No. Breath, Dipper, Breath. Periodic Table. Hydrogen. He-...heli…’ _ but there was no point. The words died in his head as a kind of cold terror he hadn’t felt in years washed over him. All he could focus on was the infuriating idea how something so tiny, so stupid, could set him off after all this time...that and, more importantly, the phone.

He burst back into the communal kitchen area and seized the backpack he’d left by the door. The front pouch was empty. He dropped it like a sandbag and went for his laptop bag. Not in any of the side pockets. He tore open the zipper to the main laptop part of the bag, but again, not a trace. It took tremendous willpower not to toss the bag of delicate hardware straight at the tile floor as he discarded it and grabbed the backpack again. As he tore into it, he barely noticed the doorbell ring. Some kind of solicitor, no doubt. Deal with it never.

The doorbell rang again by the time he’d gotten to the bottom of the paltry few changes of clothes he’d prepared. Still, no sign of the phone. Now he really began to panic. What if he left it here while we went home? _ What messages have I missed? _ What if someone breaks in while he’s gone and steals it? _ Has someone been trying to get ahold of me? _ Worse, what if Teagan or Dave finds it? _ What have I missed? _ The doorbell rings a rapid three more times, and Dipper was ready to snap. He whipped around, ready to march straight at the door…

...and then stopped in his tracks...as he heard the tiniest of sounds through the front door. Something weak, something wounded, and he knew what it was instantly.

He didn’t remember walking. He just remembered the door tearing open and…

There, standing in the doorway, was a girl he knew to be around his height, but who seemed a whole foot shorter. She was scrunched down small, her chestnut brown hair frazzled as if she had just woken up. Her cheeks and eyelids were puffy, nose red and raw. She’d clearly been crying, but her face was dry, except for a small, wet glisten at the corners of her eyes...clear to see even, though they refused to meet her brother’s.

Standing there, arms folded over her stomach, half-hiding in her sweater, Dipper barely recognized Mabel. There were only a few moments in their life where he’d seen her this...tired…

She swallowed hard, then forced her eyes up to meet his. Her mouth pulled into a weak, trembling smile.

“Hey, Bro...” She whimpered, and his heart died a little. Dipper had to face the fact that he wasn’t always right a long time ago. Not everything that he thought could go wrong actually would. He remembered being disappointed at the realization. Now, in this moment, Dipper wished that he’d never have to be right again.

“Mabel-...you...I’m sorry, I didn’t...I lost my phone and…” Mabel closed her eyes, and he cringed. It sounded like a cheap excuse, “...I’m so just so sorry.”

She didn’t say anything else. She just leaned forward and let her forehead plant itself into Dipper’s t-shirt with a barely audible thud. Dipper wrapped his arms around her on instinct, and she pressed her palms into his chest as she dragged her head up to his shoulder. She didn’t tremble. She wasn’t tense. His sister; scheming, pun-making, force of nature Mabel Pines, felt close to a ragdoll in his arms.

She must be dying on her feet. It was a ten hour drive from CalArts to West Coast Tech. He could practically feel the exhaustion radiating off of her.

It took time, but he slowly led her to the kitchen table. Without looking, she shifted away from the chair he was bringing her to. Still pressed into his chest, she pointed to his bedroom, and, in a weak, hoarse voice, grumbled “Beanbags”. He couldn’t stop the tiny smile that found his lips. Turns out there was still some Mabel in there after all.

He’d set her up with a beanbag chair and a blanket, before fetching them both a cup of tea. As he set it down, she managed a weak smile and a sharp breath that might have been a half-formed giggle. “Dip, you sap.” He brushed it off, taking a seat in the sack beside her.

“Just take your time.” he reassured.

She gingerly picked up her tea, head slowly shaking, but she hesitated to take a sip. Setting it back down, she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She tensed up, closing her mouth to trap the whimper as her eyes welled. 

“Mike…” Mabel choked out, “...Mike and I broke up.”

He watched his sister’s gaze sink, biting her lip, reflexively forcing a weak smile as she fought back tears. Dipper felt instantly sick. ‘_ Mike? No, no way. Couldn’t be. He was the good one...he was…’ _

“I’m so sorry…” Mabel shook her head at Dipper’s words, but seemed again robbed of her own. 

Moments passed and Dipper was running himself in circles. _ ‘I never heard anything about this. Not this past week, not this past month, not the year they’ve been together…’ _ he felt even sicker with himself at what he had to ask next. “...can I ask...how?”

Mabel went tense as a pair of tears finally broke free from her eyelids. Yet, before Dipper could start kicking himself, she pulled a series of weird expressions, likely “stretching her face out” after having spent so much time crying, then shrugged.

“Mental health stuff…” she offered.

“But…” Dipper was fought to keep his apoplectic confusion quiet, “...but why? I thought he was cool about it.” Again, another forced smile. He both loved and despised that she always tried to smile through the bad.

She mused weakly, “He was…” before readjusting her seat, shuffling closer to dipper. He did likewise until she was close enough to lean on his shoulder. “...but, I might have taken him on…” she choked a bit, “...quite a ride this time.” Mabel’s never this vague with her stories. They were always full of colorful descriptions, or at least confident humor. He looked down at her, and noticed that she was still as tense as ever. Her muscles shook under the pressure. She was ashamed. Mabel Pines, ashamed. In that moment, she was practically sweating shame, and it killed him.

This was wrong. All of this was wrong.

“...it might not have been the first time, either.” Then Dipper realized; she hadn’t told him everything about her relationship with her boyfriend. Of course she hadn’t. They were adults. They agreed to this. After everything that happened, they both knew it was for the best. They said it over and over again. This was how brothers and sisters were supposed to act.

Still, hearing this, he felt so...small…

“I guess he just...felt like I wasn’t getting better quick enough...like I wasn’t trying…” faint sobs were slowly overtaking her, and Dipper couldn’t keep his arm from wrapping around her and pulling her tighter into his side, resting his other hand on the blanket covering the opposite shoulder. She nuzzled tighter into his chest, a little, shakey gasp escaping her lips.

“Don’t say stuff like that.” Dipper pleaded, “Don’t even think stuff like that. You’ve gotten so much better.”

“I...I was…” was all she could say, “...recently...recently, it’s been getting worse. I’ve just felt so...lonely. Even when I’m around people.” Dipper bit his tongue, he wasn’t sure what he was going to say to that, but he knew in his heart that it wouldn’t help either of them to even humor it. “...They just...they don’t feel…”

“Real?” Dipper had thought the urge had passed. The moment he did, the word slipped out, and he regretted it immediately. Mabel’s eyes raced up to meet his, and in that brief exchange of looks, they both knew.

Mabel quickly averted her gaze, and Dipper took a moment to process what he’d just admitted. The young man slowly shrunk away from his lifelong friend, and the air turned to ice as moments slipped by between them.

Dipper could hardly feel his fingertips. As he aged by seconds, it was as if his nerves wound up, elastic, pulling all sensation to the maelstrom in his mind. His whole life with his sister, and for all he knew her, he was powerless.

About ready to choke and pass out, some well-oiled sliver of self-preservation kicked him free of the spiral, and he emerged from his thoughts scrambling.

“H’hey!” he blurted, causing Mabel to flinch, “H-how about we...get your mind off things.” He took a weathered, dusty old controller from beside the bed. The moment Mabel caught sight of the plastic bauble, a ripple went over her; a series of complicated emotions that, were it anyone else, he’d have missed. Gut-excitement, then disbelief, frustration, contemplation (a rare one), and finally tenderness.

The young lady harrumphed, perching herself cross-legged atop her beanbag, refusing to look her brother in the eye. Giving her brother just enough time to want to say something, but not enough to actually speak, she tilted her head sideways, eyes still screwed shut in mock indignation, and threw her weight into an awkward, sidelong headbutt...unknowingly sent directly into her brother’s collarbone.

Dipper hurked at the impacted, flailing backwards for balance as a sharp, bizarre pain shot through his windpipe. Immediately feeling something amiss, Mabel snapped to attention, babbling apologies. 

Dipper could only manage a weak laugh. “Let’s just play, huh?” 

Mabel beamed back, with little more than a trace of sadness left behind her eyes.

“You got it, Dip~”

They played and shouted and roughhoused until the neighbor’s knocked on the ceiling in protest, constructing grand narratives for their characters or pulling little cheats here and there to get ahead. It was always so uncanny, how, when all alone, they could just shut everything out and pick up where things left off. Even with everything that’s happened, even for how different their lives have slowly been becoming, all it takes is one excuse and suddenly…

...no. He knew that wasn’t true. Mabel knew it as well as he did. He could tell in every awkward extra glance at the end of an exchange, or the little flinches before or after they touched, as if expecting to be pushed away...or maybe wondering if they should be the one pushing away.

Dipper always told himself they could move past it with enough time, but truth be told, he can’t say if he actually believes that or not. On any other occasion, thoughts like these would be forced to the back of his mind. They had to be strong. They had to be mature.

But, as they lay, spent against the side of Dipper’s bed, he found it so much harder to care.

He was tired. His body was tired, his mind was tired, his heart was tired, and she was here with him.

She was fiddling with his fingertips. He’d just finished braiding her hair, and she’d suddenly become lazily transfixed by them. This was bad, he knew, but her voice cut the thought short.

“...I think it was him talking about marriage that scared me.” this was as much news to him as the break-up, but nowhere near as shocking. Mike was an old-fashioned guy, real humble, real traditional. The sheer number of family gatherings he allegedly went to was absurd. It’d almost be more worth investigating if he_ wasn’t _looking for Mrs. Right.

“Aren’t you crazy about that kind of romantic stuff?” as far as he could remember, she was. Even when marriage...wasn’t an option, she was enamored with it. The pageantry, the promises, the commitment…

“Yeah,” her voice had gone distant, “I really should’ve been, honestly.” She took a long pause, staring aimlessly ahead while fidgeting with increasing anxiety at Dipper’s fingers. At some point, a few strands of hair had found their way into her mouth and were now being absentmindedly chewed. 

“I mean, I was at the start. Planning every last detail became the thing that got me up every morning.” She shrugged, “I mean, none of it was set in stone, but…”

Dipper nodded. “Bet he loved that.” He’d meant it to be understanding, but...admittedly, it came out kinda backhanded. So, he wasn’t the least bit surprised when his sister raised a single, outstretched finger and pushed it into the tip of his nose.

“Snooze.” she commanded. Dipper only snickered and shook his head.

She prepared herself for a moment, then continued. “Yeah, he was a little freaked out at first...but also, just...so excited.” she smiled a bit to herself, “I could tell he wanted it. Not that-” she caught herself, “...he didn’t expect me to be so...on-board with it.” She bit her lip, “...I guess I didn’t expect him to be so on-board with it, either.” she went on; meeting Mike’s parents, his own older sister who was already married with children, the family reunion with his rude, jaded kid-cousin, property shopping, talks about school for children.... 

With each passing stage, Dipper could feel her discomfort growing. He knew what was coming before she said it, and he hated himself for knowing.

“Then,” she finally admitted, “Well, I had an...episode.” At some point, she started trembling. “...When we were with his sister and niece in the park.”

Panic was his first reaction, but he knew it would be. He’d fought the urge to flinch at the implication, and steadied with a deep breath. _ ‘This was Mabel.’ _

Rather, he gently caught one of her fidgeting hands with his own and squeezed. He could feel her let out a breath of her own at the gesture.

“I never hurt her. Gave her a good scare, though.”

And on she went, “I hadn’t noticed it, but apparently, I’ve been feeling...kind of disconnected from people. Was having a lot of nightmares about...well…”

“Yeah,” Dipper affirmed, giving her hand another soft squeeze.

She leaned back into her brother, and he could practically feel her smile from behind her.

“So...I was...kinda running myself ragged to get last year’s final project done and…”

Panicked. On an awkward day, without enough sleep, the wrong thought caught her and she just…

“...took his niece and ran.”

She continued, and it all became obvious before she said it. The questions, the judgmental looks, the fifth opinion as if the first four weren’t enough, and all the while, even though you know it’s not real…

“...the feeling like…”

...they’re all watching you…

“....that they know...”

...that you couldn’t trust them again if you tried…

“...won’t go away.”

Dipper used his free hand to hold her tighter. Mabel said nothing more, just leaning into the secure embrace of her brother.

Sometimes, the young man wonders if he ever escaped that other reality. It had waited on one’s every want and need. For just one moment, neither twin wanted anything more than to escape and grow up together. They had wanted to experience life, no matter what kind of pain or fear or heartache came their way. So long as they had each other, they’d be able to take anything life had to throw at them.

He feels his sister’s breath grow short with his own. As she turns to face his unsure eyes with her own, they confess together.

They’ve finally given up caring why this is what’s become of them.

And as she captures his lips with her own, he finally faces the fact that this might never end.

Skin hot, even through each other’s clothes, the twins are sure that, even if only for the moment, neither could hope to care.

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of a mission statement for the type of crap amma post on here.
> 
> Could use one more pass for edits, but I also need to put out one more fic before the end of the twins' birthday, or amma turn into a jack-o-melon. So, here you go for now. Write first, edit later. Priorities. Priorities.
> 
> Hang in there, folks. Keep it alive. Never stop making shit.
> 
> (Update: Minor Grammar Edits)


End file.
